Tuesday, June 08, 2010

I now return to my usual daily news and bitching

Ace thinks the progressives and liberals are criticizing Obama on style to try to prevent the real criticism of his failures to act & failures in act from taking off.Another thought on Obama's actions and inactions here:So if the oil spill in the Gulf manages to destroy the fishing and tourist industries in that region, shut down oil drilling, raise the price of oil and of food all over the country, and bring more and more Americans to a financial breaking point and thus dependent on food stamps and other government programs, Obama and Co. will smile and nod at one another as the Cloward-Piven strategy hums merrily along.

Another case of enviroweenies trying to remove humans from the open spaces.

The whole of that interview with Helen Thomas; assuming you can stomach listening to more of her.

Hey, unions, this is the kind of crap that makes people not like you:Godin, a 20-year Marine veteran until 1994, who flew F-4 Phantoms and was deployed five times, said he refuses to join the union because he receives all his benefits, including health insurance and half his salary, from the military. Unlike other teachers, he doesn’t earn a stipend for after-school activities, such as the hours he spends coaching the high school’s regional champion drill team. His salary is dictated by the U.S. Military, not labor negotiators, Godin said....State law requires certain public employees to join unions as a condition of employment or pay a so-called agency fee, which goes toward the cost of collective bargaining. But Godin said he shouldn’t have to pay the $500 fee because he receives no benefit from the local union. He provided a letter from the local union demanding he join or pay the fee by the school year’s end. Godin said in 14 years of teaching in Worcester public schools, he’s never been asked to pony up for the union.

The British Labour Party and more union crap:LABOUR leadership hopeful John McDonnell said yesterday he would ASSASSINATE Maggie Thatcher if he could go back in time.The hard-Left MP made his sickening attack on the ex-Tory Premier as he tried to persuade union delegates to back him.And the union thugs cheered.

Today’s WSJ has an interesting and eye-opening article on corporate-funded opposition to proposed Wal-Mart stores disguised as local community activism. When I saw local busybodies try to stop the opening of a Wal-Mart in Cleveland — a Wal-Mart that did not receive any local subsidies nor require the use of eminent domain — I realized that union groups backed the effort. What I was not aware of at the time was that grocery stores and large supermarket chains have become substantial funders of anti-Wal-Mart activism.

“The naval wing of the Revolutionary Guard is ready to assist the peace flotilla to Gaza with all its effort and capabilities,” Khamenei’s Revolutionary Guard spokesman Ali Shirazi stated. “If the Supreme Leader issues an order for this then the Revolutionary Guard naval forces will do their best to secure the ships,” Shirazi said. “It is Iran’s duty to defend the innocent people of Gaza.”

A couple of points. This isn’t coming from Ahmadinejad. This is coming from Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (the offer, per Reuters, was made today in an interview). So this should be viewed with much more credibility, since Khamenei is where the real decision making rests with the Iranian regime.

Second point – it wouldn’t at all surprise me if Iran attempted such a thing. It would help their relations with the Arab world, it would divert attention to their favorite external enemy (besides the US) and, if they can provoke violence, further alienate Israel. It might also help them avoid really harmful sanctions. What are the lives of a few Revolutionary Guard naval forces with that sort of beneficial pay-off in the offing?

Linked at Uncle, a fine example of prime, Grade A idiocy:On their website was a 2:41-long video “extra” that tells in searing detail the recollections of Mike Williams, Deepwater Horizon‘s chief electronics technician, who survived the explosion and fire, and was one of the last people to make it off the rig alive. He describes how the last life raft full of survivors almost didn’t escape the burning oil slick under the doomed rig because no one had a knife to cut the sea painter with due to Transocean’s no-knife policy. WTF???!!!Yep. They're in charge of all kinds of equipment, all kinds of tools, but a knife is a no-no. The B does stand for British indeed.

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at elmtreeforge at att point net

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences. - C.S. Lewis

Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave. - Capt. Mal

A Rifleman’s Prayer:Oh Lord, I would live my life in freedom, peace and happiness, enjoying the simple pleasures of hearth and home. I would die an old, old man in my own bed, preferably of sexual overexertion.

But if that is not to be, Lord, if monsters such as this should find their way to my little corner of the world on my watch, then help me to sweep those bastards from the ramparts, because doing that is good, and right, and just.

And if in this I should fall, let me be found atop a pile of brass, behind the wall I made of their corpses. Geek with a .45

"He's Black Council,", I said.

"Or maybe stupid," Ebenezar countered.

I thought about it. "Not sure which is scarier."

Ebenezar blinked at me, then snorted. "Stupid, Hoss. Every time. Only so many blackhearted villains in the world, and they only get uppity on occasion. Stupid's everywhere, every day." Ebenezar McCoy

“A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition” ― Rudyard Kipling